Hinterland Scrip-Making

Early Railway Content and Onwards

This Guide is about how to best make Hinterland Scrip; if you're more interested in Echoes check Money-Making

Introduction

Once the player establishes the Great Hellbound Railway, they can access the Hinterlands where Echoes are replaced by Hinterland Scrip as a currency. Instead of the Bazaar, they will have access to shops at the Upper River Exchange to buy and sell certain items. Scrip is also (extensively) needed to develop the stations along the railway.

If you're pre-Railway and are here to learn how to get the  400 x Hinterland Scrip needed to buy into the Railway in the first place, see Hinterland Scrip-Making#Getting Scrip before the Railway below.

Scrip cannot be bought directly, but going by items that can be sold at both the Bazaar and the Upper River Exchange, the value of 1 Scrip is roughly equal to 0.5 Echoes. To convert Scrip to Echoes, the player can simply buy Tin of Zzoup or Tinned Ham and sell them back the Bazaar. Converting Echoes to Scrip tends to involve much more work and actions. Below you'll find the best options to do so.

(In the following, we will use SPA to denote Scrip per action.)

The Bone Market

Licentiate Bone Market grind

Requirements: being a Licentiate, Mithridacy 10 (less will reduce profit)

At the Bone Market, when the Zoological Mania is Primates:

• Supply a skeleton of your own (requires being a Licentiate)
• Cap this with a victim's skull (requires being a Licentiate)
• Declare your skeleton a Humanoid
• Sell your skeleton to the Constable for 31 Scrip, for a profit of 7.75 SPA.

When a Bright Brass Skull is used instead of the victim's skull, this approach converts 62.5 Echoes (for the Skull) and 200 x Nevercold Brass into Scrip at a rate of 42.25 SPA (requires Mithridacy 10 to be straightforward).

Non-Licentiate Bone Market grind a.k.a. Brass Lollipop grind

Requirements: Involved in a Railway Venture 130 (i.e. reaching Marigold Station via the Great Hell-bound Railway), Mithridacy 10 (less will reduce profit)

Non Licentiates can adopt the above grind once they reach Marigold station. In Hell's hinterlands, beseech Saint Trezigor to find a way to the Lost Wall, which allows one to grind Headless Skeletons at a rate of one per action. These can substitute the victim's skeleton in the above grind, changing the steps to:

• On the Primates week, Reassemble your Headless Humanoid
• Affix a Bright Brass Skull to your (Skeleton Type) (requires Mithridacy 10 to be straightforward)
• Declare your skeleton a Humanoid
• Sell to the Theologian for 34 x Crate of Incorruptible Biscuits (worth 170 Scrip in total)

Disregarding travel cost, this yields 170 Scrip per 5 actions, or 34 SPA (at the cost of 62.5 Echoes and 200 x Nevercold Brass Sliver).

Combining high-yield echo grinds with Bone Market

If your character does not have a metric ton of echoes ready to be converted into Scrip, the Bone Market grinds described above may still be worth doing. Their profitability will depend on having access to one of the high-yield money grinds.

When combining an echo grind which gives you X echoes per action with the Brass Lollipop grind, Scrip gain will, during a regular week, be:

• 155 / (4.52 + 62.5 / X) SPA for Licentiates.
• 155 / (5.52 + 62.5 / X) SPA for everyone else.

To give a few examples:

	3 EPA	4 EPA	5 EPA	6 EPA
Licentiate	6.11 SPA	7.69 SPA	9.11 SPA	10.38 SPA
Non-Licentiate	5.88 SPA	7.33 SPA	8.60 SPA	9.73 SPA

When selling during a Primates week the formulas become:

• 170 / (4.52 + 62.5 / X) SPA for Licentiates.
• 170 / (5.52 + 62.5 / X) SPA for everyone else.

The new table during a Primates week is:

	3 EPA	4 EPA	5 EPA	6 EPA
Licentiate	6.71 SPA	8.44 SPA	9.99 SPA	11.38 SPA
Non-Licentiate	6.45 SPA	8.04 SPA	9.43 SPA	10.67 SPA

The Game of Poison and Delight (a.k.a. Hearts' Game)

Requirements: A Person of Some Importance - 3 (i.e. a tier 2 PoSI), Shadowy Gains 20 (which requires having completed a Parabolan War campaign as well as some other Parabolan activities), Hearts' Game: A Player of the Game quality obtained.

Recommended: The Reptile Book, The Fish Book (not having the books will make the grind slightly less profitable)

Once you've joined the game, every action, no matter if you succeed or fail a challenge or win or lose a round of the game will reward you 1 x Hearts' Game: Exploits. For 65 Exploits you can choose Leviathan Frame worth 315.5 Echoes as a reward (66 actions, including picking the Leviathan Frame).

One way to make use of this is as follows:

• 66 actions to get the Leviathan Frame via Hearts' Game
• 1 action and 120.5 (on average, if your Persuasive is high) to buy a Sabre-toothed Skull from the Enthusiast of the Ancient World.
• Buy 2 x Unidentified Thigh Bone for 4 from the Upper River Exchange (If you don't have access to the Upper River, you can also get Jurassic Thighbones from Dockers' Brawls, getting paid in bones or get Unidentified Thigh Bones from the Grandmother at the Bone Market, but it won't be as efficient.)
• 5 actions to assemble a skeleton and declare it as a Reptile. This skeleton has value of 37700, has 2 x Antiquity and 2 x Menace.
  (Not having the Reptile Book means you'll have to declare it a Chimera which will be slightly less profitable.)
• 1 action to sell to An Author of Gothic Tales.

Of note: When Zoological Mania is Reptiles, you'll get 10% bonus on the skeleton value. When Bone Market Fluctuations: is Menace or Antiquity, you'll get one additional 5 worth of secondary item.

This yields SPA of:

Bone Market fad	Amalgamy	Menace/Antiquity
Reptile	9.99	10.06
Other	8.96	9.03

Alternatively, if your Dangerous is high enough to be able to get 12 x Femur of a Jurassic Beast in 10 actions by Brawling with Dockers, you can use those instead of the Unidentified Thigh Bones. This adds 1.66 actions to get the 2 femurs, while raising the skeleton's value by 400 and gives 2 extra points of Antiquity. The resulting SPA becomes:

Bone Market fad	Amalgamy	Menace	Antiquity
Reptile	10.21	10.28	10.35
Other	9.19	9.26	9.33

On Fish week, you can get 15% bonus on the base skeleton value when creating fish instead of reptiles, but this depends on efficiently sourcing Fin Bones, Collected. With Glasswork 12+, Monstrous Anatomy 13+, Dangerous 245 or above, and a lab that can produce 25 x Laboratory Research per action, hunting sharks in Parabola and then dissecting them can produce at least 2 x Fin Bones, Collected per action. Assuming we get exactly 2 fins per action, and doing everything else as noted above, we'll get:

Bone Market fad	Amalgamy	Menace/Antiquity
Fish	10.39	10.46
Other	8.87	8.94

The City of the Tracklayers

Requirements: Access to The City of the Tracklayers

Recommended:

• Hinterland Efficiency maxed to 300
• High skills
• FATE-locked: At least one of the Vignettes available at Expand Your Interests
• A Submerged Rector AND Chosen Site 5 (In the Parish of Burrow)
• Chosen Site 3 (Outside of Balmoral)

See The City of the Tracklayers (Guide) for more information.

A player with high-enough skills can reliably get 500-520 Prosperity per action, depending on card availability. Each Prosperity is theoretically worth 0.01 , so 50 Prosperity approximately equals one Scrip. There are various ways of cashing Prosperity out as Scrip, at varying levels of efficiency. All of these grinds can be done in unlimited batch size, so travel costs will be ignored.

Sap of the Cedar at the Crossroads FATE-locked

Using the FATE-locked "Vignettes" such as Peddlers of the Lily Rites, it is possible to exchange 6250 Prosperity for 1 x Sap of the Cedar at the Crossroads worth 125 Scrip. Depending on the rate of 500 vs 520 Prosperity actions, it takes between 12 and 12.5 actions on average to gather the required Prosperity, plus 1 action to cash out. This yields an SPA of 9.26 to 9.6.

All four Vignettes offer similar exchange options, and any single Vignette is sufficient to enable this strategy. The Vignettes differ in which Skills they test, and which alternate items they reward on failure.

• The Serpent Muralist: Tests Glasswork and Mithridacy, failures pay in Searing Enigma
• Sub-Basement: Tests Monstrous Anatomy and A Player of Chess, failures pay in 5 Puzzling Map
• Peddlers of the Lily Rites: Tests Artisan of the Red Science and Kataleptic Toxicology, failures pay in 5 Verse of Counter-Creed
• Three Body Problem: Tests Zeefaring and Shapeling Arts, failures pay in 5 Trembling Amber

Imports and Exports

Without spending FATE, the only notable way to cash out Prosperity for Scrip is to use select options on Imports and Exports. This is actually more efficient than using the Vignettes option, but in practice it is manifestly impossible to cash out all of your Prosperity in this fashion. Each draw of the card only converts up to 750 Prosperity at a time, and Prosperity will accumulate far more frequently than the card can be drawn.

The cash-out cards added by Vignettes convert five times as much Prosperity per draw, and are drawn twice as frequently. In practice a single Vignette will be able to consume Prosperity as fast as it is generated. The conversion is slightly less efficient so even when using Vignettes, it is preferable to use Imports and Exports as often as possible.

Verse of Counter-Creed

When in possession of a A Submerged Rector, Verse of Counter-Creed can be sold for 36 Scrip using Noisily subvert the entire process. Using The book trade, 1050 - Hinterland Efficiency Prosperity (1000 - Hinterland Efficiency with Chosen Site 5 (In the Parish of Burrow)) can be cashed in for a Verse of Counter-Creed.

For Cities near Burrow: 1.35 to 1.40 actions to gather Prosperity, plus 2 actions for conversions, yields 10.59 to 10.75 SPA.

For Cities elsewhere: 1.44 to 1.50 actions to gather Prosperity, plus 2 actions for conversions, yields 10.29 to 10.47 SPA.

It is also possible to sell the Verse of Counter-Creed using Lend religiously, but this maxes out at 8.82 SPA, so it is always better to use the next method.

Vital Intelligence

Lastly, it is possible to use Vibrations on the web to exchange 1050 - Hinterland Efficiency Prosperity (1000 - Hinterland Efficiency with Chosen Site 3 (Outside of Balmoral)) for one Vital Intelligence worth 25 Scrip. This takes one less action per Vital Intelligence than the cycle above, since the conversion to Scrip is free in this case.

For Cities near Balmoral: 1.35 to 1.40 actions to gather Prosperity, plus 1 action for conversion, yields 10.42 to 10.64 SPA.

For Cities elsewhere: 1.44 to 1.50 actions to gather Prosperity, plus 1 actions for conversion, yields 10.00 to 10.25 SPA.

Overview

SPA by method

Method	SPA lower bound	SPA upper bound
Cedar-Sap	9.25	9.6
Verse at Burrow	10.59	10.75
Verse elsewhere	10.29	10.47
Vital Intelligence at Balmoral	10.42	10.64
Vital Intelligence elsewhere	10	10.25

The Osteology Lab

Requirements: Volume of your Cryptopalaeontological Work, Persuasive 300, Dangerous 292 (lower stats will make this slightly less efficient)

• Brawl with Dockers to gain 12 x Femur of a Jurassic Beast. With Dangerous 292 this can be achieved in 10 actions; favourable Airs or having certain items can improve this part of the grind
• Visit The Osteology Lab at The Museum of Prelapsarian History
  • Identify the femur of a Jurassic beast
  • Request help from a University colleague once (this raises the chance for identifying the bone to 30%, straightforward with Persuasive 300)
  • Assert that the specimen is [anything, really] until you succeed (this is luck-based but should on average take 3.12 tries)
  • repeat until it becomes possible to Complete a monograph on the subject
• Speak with Gebrandt, the Museum Curator and Secure a shipment of dubiously preserved food

Each set of Femurs acquired via Brawling allows twelve cycles of identification in the Lab. Each of these cycles should – on average – require 14.37 actions and gain 6500 x Curator's Gratitude. Selling the Biscuits and Peppercaps gained this way at the Upper River Exchange will give 8.55 SPA on average.

The same process can be applied to Fossilised Forelimbs, which give 8750 x Curator's Gratitude. Assuming Forelimbs are bought at the Upper River Exchange for 85 Scrip (equivalent to 4250 Gratitude), this results in a net gain of 4500 Gratitude = 90 Scrip for 14.37 actions, or 6.26 SPA.

The Moonlit Chessboard

Requirements: A Player of Chess 12, The Boatman's Opponent 40, Parabolan Dominance 4 (i.e. the Red-Handed Queen is ruling the Dome of Scales)

Note: Technically, this approach starts working with A Player of Chess 11 but profits will be smaller and harder to calculate.

Cycle

For purposes of this guide, one cycle consists of four chess games. During the first three games, the goal is to win with at least Distance Ahead 26. This can be accomplished by maximising the APoC-quality and then choosing:

• New game:
  • Midnighters only: Recognise an opening because of your professional affiliations
  • Play a novel approach (requires Colour at the Chessboard: Red, do this twice when not a Midnighter)
• Middle game: 5 x Play a move you learned from the Boatman (requires The Boatman's Opponent 40)
• Endgame: choose a Queen Mate or an Epaulette Mate

Choosing these endgame rewards will additionally give a minimum of 120 x Well-Placed Pawn per game. Midnighters will also get 1 x Vienna Opening at the very start of each game.

During the fourth game

• New game:
  • Midnighters only: Recognise an opening because of your professional affiliations
  • Follow the movements of the pieces (when not a Midnighter, choose any option for the second move)
• Middle game: Any choices to increase Distance Ahead (e.g. the Boatman-branch or Play aggressively)
• Endgame: Force a Stalemate in the endgame. This will trade the 360 Pawns accumulated over the first three games for a Stalemate.

The above cycle takes 36 actions and gives 3 x Epaulette Mate (or 3 x Queen Mate) plus 1 x Stalemate, which results in 7.64 SPA. Midnighters will additionally get 4 x Vienna Opening, increasing the profit to 8.19 SPA.

Note: If the player has the now retired quality Mastery of the Game 100, they don't need to choose a specific colour but can instead Open with a familiar move when starting a new game, for slightly more Pawns in the Endgame.

Improvements

The number of Pawns received per game increases with higher APoC or increasing Distance Ahead. More Pawns will increase profit in the long run. For example, if the player has APoC 14 and is playing Red, they can get 131 Pawns per game. If they have APoC 12 and Mastery of the Game 100, they can achieve Distance Ahead 31 and thus 143 Pawns per game. If the player can get at least 130 Pawns per game, after three cycles there will be enough leftover Pawns that they can immediately force another Stalemate. That means for 13 games, i.e. 117 actions, the player will get 950 x Scrip. This raises the overall profit to 8.11 SPA. Midnighters can additionally get 13 Vienna Openings over these games, raising their total profit to 1015 Scrip or 8.67 SPA.

Professional Activities (in Food)

Requirements: Tier 3 profession (Silverer, Correspondent, etc.), advanced stat corresponding to profession at 15+ (e.g. Glasswork for Silverers, etc.), Notability 5, a Pie Shop at Ealing Gardens.

For full effect, certain qualities along the railway need to be unlocked as well:

• Silverers: Discovered: the Sea of Spines (Ealing Gardens) and The Flower from Hell that Grows Under Your Skin (Marigold Station)
• Monster Hunters: Balmoral's Castellan and Discovered: The Wellspring of Moulin
• Correspondents: Jericho Library and Steward of the Discordance (The Hurlers)
• Crooked Crosses: A Church in the Wild (finished) (Burrow-Infra-Mump) and Route: St Trezigor's (Marigold Station)
• Midnighters: Discovered: the Balmoral Dumbwaiter and Khaganian Safe-Conduct (Balmoral, Khanate)
• Licentiates: Discovered: The Sere Palace (Jericho Locks) and Discovered the Factory VIII Laboratory

Professional activities can yield 320, 410, or (if the Profession-Stat is > 16) 450 x Value. The average over 10 actions is 4010 x Value (if stat is below 16) or 4210 x Value (if above). 2750 x Value can be traded for 5 x Crate of Incorruptible Biscuits, 5 x Basket of Rubbery Pies, and 5 x Solacefruit worth 30 Scrip total. As Basket of Rubbery Pies cannot be sold for Scrip directly, optimal payout requires the Pie Stand at Ealing Gardens for an additional 32 Scrip on average.

At 275 Cycles of 10 Actions apiece, 401 (421 if stat is over 16) payouts in food are obtained, giving 12030 Scrip (12630 Scrip) plus 2005 (2105) x Basket of Rubbery Pies worth another 24862 (26102) Scrip in 3151 (3171) Actions, for a total of 7.90 / 8.23 SPA.

Improvements

Licentiates, Oneirotect Silverers, Hierarch Monster-Hunters, and Iniquitor Midnighters can be paid In intelligence, which exclusively gives items directly sellable for Scrip. This allows to save some of the Pie-selling-actions, thus slightly increasing the overall SPA. 32 Scrip is paid per 5 Services Rendered: The Great Game; of which an average of 3 may be obtained per the Airs of Industry. IF a Stat>16 player goes ONLY for the Great-Game option when available (worth 410, not 450), the average value dips to 4090 value per cycle; thus limiting top values: 8.12 / 8.26 SpA

University Lab

Selling Cartographer's Hoards at the Upper River Exchange: Having a FATE-upgraded Lab and Hephaesta (from Ambition:Light Fingers!) working in the Lab gives on average roughly 7.7 SPA. (Not having Hephaesta will be slightly less profitable but not terribly so.) With Hephaesta it is recommended to have one student working in the Lab to make the most of Unavoidable Epiphanies (a Profound or Visionary student is best since they give the most research if there's no Epiphany at hand). Having a Fourth Assistant in the Lab will also slightly increase overall profit.

Helicon House

Fitting In grind

Requirements: free entrance, Train Luxuries 4 or higher, access to one of the actions granting 3 x Fitting in at Helicon House, a Helicon House Companion which grants Fitting In.

• Enter Helicon House for free with your Fitting In companion (gives 3 x Fitting In)
• Spend 4 actions gaining 12 more Fitting In.
• Forget the biscuits, take the Solacefruit on your way out, gaining 20 Solacefruit and 15 Peppercaps, worth 5.83 SPA

Using the FATE-locked A Pendant of Helicon Amber allows the player to enter Helicon House at Time Remaining 4, thus saving one action. That way, the above approach gives 20 Solacefruit + 12 Peppercaps for 5 actions, rasing the profit to 6.4 SPA

Catless Casing grind

A Fate-free Casing...-based grind. Only do this if you don't have a 3 x Fitting In companion. (Last updated: 29th Nov 2021.)

Requirements: free entrance, Train Luxuries 4 or higher, companion that gives 1 x Fitting in at Helicon House

This grind consists of two alternating phases.

• 1st Phase:
  • Enter Helicon House with your Fitting In companion
  • Keep a close eye on everyone present twice (gives 8 CP of Casing... total)
  • Do actions that give 2 Fitting In twice. See Helicon House (Guide). Some of these provides Making Waves, Inspired... etc. This is not considered here.
  • Forget the biscuits, take the Solacefruit for items worth 29 Scrip

• 2nd Phase:
  • Enter Helicon House with your Fitting In companion
  • Keep a close eye on everyone present twice (gives 8 CP of Casing... total)
  • Lay claim to any left-behind items for 25 Scrip. We have built up 16 CP Casing... and spent 15; that leaves 1 CP, i.e. we can skip the 1st Phase once after doing this 7 times.
• Gives a total of 403 Scrip per 74 actions, i.e. 5.44 SPA.

Catty Casing grind

An adaption of the previous grind if you have the Morally and Physically Flexible Rubbery Cat:

• 1st Phase:
  • Enter Helicon House
  • Keep a close eye on everyone present (gives 5 CP of Casing...)
  • Deploy your Morally and Physically Flexible Rubbery Cat (gives 6 CP of Casing... and consumes 3 Hand-picked Peppercaps)
  • Do actions that give 2 fitting in twice. See Helicon House (Guide). Some of these provides Making Waves, Inspired... etc. This is not considered here.
  • Forget the biscuits, take the Solacefruit for items worth 30 Scrip (a net profit of 27 Scrip, since 3 Peppercaps were consumed by the cat)

• 2nd Phase:
  • Enter Helicon House with your Fitting In companion
  • Keep a close eye on everyone present (gives another 5 CP of Casing...)
  • Lay claim to any left-behind items for 26 Scrip. We have built up 16 CP Casing... and spent 15; that leaves 1 CP, i.e. we can skip the 1st Phase once after doing this 10 times.
• Gives a total of 556 Scrip per 93 actions, i.e. 5.98 SPA (plus 0.16 EPA on average, depending on entrance method)

Having a 3 x Fitting In companion (e.g. the Rubbery Euphonium) results in 29 Scrip for the 1st Phase, raising the overall profit to 6.19 SPA.

Other grinds

Alternative ways to gain Hinterland Scrip include:

• Going on expeditions in Moulin to gain the resources to subsequently write Monographs at the Archeological Institute may net between 9.03 and 9.26 SPA (9.32 with a FATE-locked team member). A good approach for expeditions is described here. For Monographs, it is important to choose a topic related to the Fourth City or the Khanate. This will unlock the Disgraced Diplomat as a potential buyer, who exclusively pays in items that can be sold for Scrip. More details can be found here.

• Brawling for Crate of Incorruptible Biscuits and selling them at the Upper River Exchange:
  • Brawling for a group gives 5 SPA (including the journey), approaching 5.5 SPA if Biscuits are stockpiled and sold in bulk.
  • Brawling for yourself (at a 100% check) gives 5.33 SPA (including the journey), approaching 5.7 SPA if rewards are stockpiled and sold in bulk. This can further improved by having a Special Dispensation, favourable Airs, or other qualities increasing Brawling gain.

• Intercepting Cablegrams in Khanate allows one to grind a Vital Intelligence in 4 actions (assuming that one can 100% every check), therefore giving a 6.25 SPA when done in bulk (so that the actions spent on travel can be disregarded).

• Reaching out to London's Mind after the City in Silver has reached Exploration 70 allows one to grind a Stalemate in 13 actions (assuming that one can 100% every check) at the cost of 5 Nightmare CP. Assuming Honey is acquired at 2 actions per 100 and Parabolan Defences 3), 92 actions for 6 Stalemates gives 8.15 SPA when done in bulk (so that the Honey actions spent on travel can be disregarded). A Silverer can reduce the Honey actions to 1, and adding Aurochs'-Fur Coat, or Final Resting Place of an Old Friend, or other Nightmare-reducer, the Nightmares dip to 4CP/Stalemate; three cycles of 8 Communes with Defences 3 gives 8.50 SPA. If you picked the specific Bag a Legend option to get Defences 4, the Nightmares drop faster, and the grind is 8.70SPA. It is more efficient to acquire Stalemates gradually to make use of "free" Nightmares reduction: if the Nightmares can be amortised (via Time, the Healer, the Nadir, or another action that incidentally reduces nightmares), the rate improves to 9.62SPA.

• Several "epilogues" to end-game activities allow you to grind items depending on the choice made. These include: Manoeuvre the Counter-Church after establishing the Counter-Church (Chess 5 Challenge), Take tea in the vestry for Church In The Wild, Perform Outreach for the Church for Anglican Diocese, Speak with the Khatun for liberating the Khatun in the Fingerkings campaign, Enter the Palatinate alone without cat title after refusing King's deal in the Cats campaign and Enter the house (Red) for siding with the Red in the Chess campaign. Each of these actions gives you items that can be sold at Upper River, resulting in flat 5 SPA, not counting the travel actions.

Getting Scrip before the Railway

Here are a few sources to get scrip before you reach Ealing Gardens or get access to Helicon House. They are not as efficient, but are good enough to take you to Ealing:

• If the player can reach Kataleptic Toxicology 10, they can get a consistent 4.00 SPA by contributing some expertise to the next novel of the Author of Gothic Tales at The Bone Market.

• If the player doesn't want to grind and has 470 to spare, with The Author of Gothic Tales -- again, at The Bone Market -- you can sell her a Viric Frock for 450 Scrip. A Viric Frock can be obtained by buying a Parabola-Linen Frock from the Bazaar (along with a few Cheerful Goldfish for Favours from The Fingerkings if you don't have the 3 you'll need already), and then going to the Viric Jungle in Parabola to dip the frock in The Most Searing Green. See the Parabola Guide for details on Parabola.
  • At about a 1:1 Scrip to Echo ratio, this takes very few actions, but is fairly wasteful of Echoes.

• Attaching Bright Brass Skull to Headless Skeleton (and then Sell to a Constable (Skeleton)) exchanges Echoes for Scrip at a favourable ratio with low action expenditure:
  • Buying Headless Skeletons at The Small Stalls gives approximately a 2:1 Scrip to Echoes ratio, converting an investment of 74.5 (72.5 on failure) into 155 Hinterland Scrip (145 on failure).
  • Using card-dependent sources for Headless Skeletons improves this, converting an investment of 64.5 (62.5 on failure) into 155 x Hinterland Scrip (145 Scrip on failure).
  • It generally takes 5 actions per transaction: acquire headless skeleton, build skeleton, attach head, declare humanoid, sell completed skeleton.
  • Licentiates can use the Licentiate Bone Market grind described above

• Create a Mirthless Compendium of Statistical Observations and chose to Pass off your corrupted tables to an unsuspecting colleague to gain 20 Hinterland Scrip.

• Dreams: A Choice of Reverie in the Viric Jungle can if you Play Oneiropomp to Madame Petrovsky. Selecting Let her take her visions home and peddle them to her followers nets Hinterland Scrip to the tune of Intensity x 4. Must have 10 Oneiropomp and 10 Embroiled in the Wars of Illusion

Partially outdated grinds

The New Mammoth Ranching / A New Pope

Wiki note: Due to changes on 23/02/2024, this grind is now much less profitable. Current SPA is unknown.

A multi-faceted grind with highest efficiency (approximately 12 SPA overall) and steep requirements: A New Pope Guide

International Intrigues

Wiki note: The maths here should still be correct. However, Khaganian Opportunities should be more profitable these days. Also keep in mind that the below guide was written before the Rat Market existed, which may also impact the optimal strategy.

This grind mostly revolves around Cover Identities and Khaganian Intrigues. Thematically, all of the core components of the cycle involve sneaking or subterfuge. Mechanically, it makes use of high values of A Player of Chess, Shadowy, and the BDR qualities, and to a lesser extent Glasswork.

Summary

Expanding your Network in the Khanate is an extremely efficient Infiltration, acquiring items worth 62.5 in 15 actions (4.17 EPA). The problem is that the reward is random, and some of them cannot be effectively converted into Echoes, much less Hinterland Scrip, so making money adds an action tax in the form of cycling Airs of the Khanate. This grind tries to reduce overhead by finding Scrip conversions for as many rewards as possible. Currently, conversions are available for rewards from 4/10 of the potential recruits, although more time is actually spent converting the rewards than collecting them.

Requirements

• Involved in a Railway Venture built out to The Hurlers
  • (Only building out to Balmoral is viable with modifications)
  • Maxed Cabinet Noir (level 4)
  • Maxed Hurlers Commercial Development (level 3)
  • Access to The Clay Highwayman's Camp as a Marauder
• Access to The Khanate (and a Ship)
  • A Khaganian Front that can pass checks at any hour (see Khaganian Intrigue (Guide) for details)

Maximum efficiency requires the following. Lower stats will take slightly longer, and sometimes incur Menaces.

• A Player of Chess 12
• Dreaded 14 and Respectable 14 while attaining that level of Chess ( Bizarre can substitute for Dreaded if needed)
• Being able to find the weakness in an opponent's defences in 4 actions ( Shadowy Gains 6 and either Glasswork 12 or Kataleptic Toxicology 12 if also possessing an Acicular Squirrel )
• Really high Shadowy (300ish) is desirable

The Grind

Most progress can be accrued indefinitely, so travel costs can be amortised, and are ignored in these calculations. The exception is entering and leaving the Clay Highwayman's camp, as the Cover Identity is consumed on completing the larceny. Travel to the Khanate is time-consuming, so this grind should only be considered for the long terms.

Step 1: Khanate Acquire items by expanding your Network on Airs values of 10-19 (Naive Dissident), 40-59 (Shapeless Aristocrat, Bandaged Naval Officer), or 90-100 (Idle Soldier), and re-rolling Airs on other values. The first of those values gives a Stalemate which can simply be sold in the Upper River for 125. The other three grant a Mortification of a Great Power, which is used for Cover Identities. On average, you will need 1.5 re-rolls per successful Intrigue, so each Intrigue costs 16.5 actions.

If your Methods of a Khaganian Front is Subversion ( Shadowy), then you may also consider playing Airs 20-29 (Immaculate Tailor) and 70-79 (Lovelorn Engineer). These grant a Much-Needed Gap for 15 actions, and can then be exploited to save 14 actions on larger Infiltrations. Since they pay back the only resources they cost (actions), they are effectively "free." If you believe this line of reasoning, then there are only 8 non-Gap Recruits to consider, of which 4 are recruited and 4 are re-rolled, reducing the re-roll tax to 1 action.

Step 2: Cabinet Noir Construct a Cover Identity with Elaboration 10, Witnesses 5, Credentials 5, and 80 points of Backstory. Maximum profitability assumes being able 100% the checks for Witnesses and Credentials. It is not currently possible to always 100% the checks for Elaboration up to 10, and a player with 300 Shadowy will incur about 1.16 failures along the way (see Cover Identities (Guide)#Elaboration for details).

You can get 78 points of Backstory from 3 x Mortification of a Great Power, and the last two points can covered by a handful of Well-Placed Pawns. These are given as spare change on various interactions, so they are glossed over in the calculations.

Step 3: Crimes! Each Larceny uses 55 CP of Casing.... Trying to find the weakness in an opponent's defences twice obtains 56 CP in 8 actions. Remember that the Casing is spent, not wiped, so it can be obtained in bulk to save travel costs.

Enter the Clay Highwayman's camp and Con a Seasoned Smuggler for one Fabulous Diamond. Take the train up to the Hurlers and trade one Fabulous Diamond to the Calculating Lapidary for 625, plus 2 x Stolen Kiss.

A variation is to instead Con a Palaeontological Yank for a Prismatic Frame. This reward is also worth 625 when used to build a skeleton for the right buyer. While assembling the skeleton takes extra actions and materials, its value can sometimes benefit from Zoological Mania:, and it does not require access to the Hurlers. Note the required Cover Identity uses Nuance ( Bizarre) in place of Witnesses ( Dreaded).

Cycling cards in the Clay Highwayman's camp shouldn't take very log, but sometimes it does. This would be another reason to con the Yank instead of the Smuggler.

Profitability

Conveniently, there are three Recruits that grant Mortification of a Great Power, which is how many Mortifications it takes to make the Cover Identity for one Larceny. We therefore assume that one cycle in the Khanate rolls each Recruit one, and one cycle elsewhere is one Cover Identity.

The overall gain is 7.28 SPA.

Khanate	Actions	Materials
Recruit an Agent (Airs 10–19)	15	Stalemate ( 125)
Recruit an Agent (Airs 40–60, 90–100)	45	3 x Mortification of a Great Power
Re-roll agents	6	N/A
Cabinet Noir	Actions	Materials
Cover Identity: Elaboration	11	+3 CP Suspicion
Cover Identity: Witnesses	5
Cover Identity: Credentials	5
Cover Identity: Backstory	4	-3 x Mortification of a Great Power -25 x Well-Placed Pawn
Crimes	Actions	Materials
Casing in Parabola	8
Larcenies (incl. travel)	3	1 x Fabulous Diamond
Calculating Lapidary	1	-1 x Fabulous Diamond 625 2 x Stolen Kiss
Totals	103	750 2 x Stolen Kiss -25 x Well-Placed Pawn +3 CP Suspicion

Holding your breath in the Hurlers (not yet updated!)

Wiki note: Numbers have been updated post-nerf, but the overall cycle has not been reviewed to see if there is a more optimal path.

Requires high Dangerous, and access to The Hurlers, the eighth station of the Railway. Relies on Hurlers: Darkness manipulation and holding your breath underwater, plus requires Correspondence Plaques. Generates large amounts of Final Breath. (Source)

1. Start with Stoking the Stove 1 and 7 Darkness (this is the state immediately after bringing the stove back to the station).
2. Add more plaques to the stove 9 times (this drops Darkness to 1 + 0 CP and raises Stoking the Stove to 4 + 0 CP). This costs 9 actions and 63 Correspondence Plaques.
3. Hold your breath underwater. This costs 1 action and gains 22 Final Breaths.
4. Add more plaques to the stove again (drops Darkness to 0, raises Stoking the Stove to 4 + 1 CP). This costs 1 action and 7 Plaques.
5. Perform the following loop 8 times:
   1. Hold your breath underwater twice. The first time gets you 23 Final Breaths (0 Darkness), the second gets you 22. This costs 2 actions and gains 45 Final Breaths and raises Darkness to 2 + 1 CP)
   2. Add more plaques to the stove (drops Darkness to 1 + 0 CP, raises Stoking the Stove by 1 CP). This costs 1 action and 7 Plaques.
   3. Hold your breath underwater (raises Darkness to 2 + 0 CP). This costs 1 action and gains 22 Breaths.
   4. Add more plaques to the stove (drops Darkness to 0, raises Stoking the Stove by 1 CP). This costs 1 action and 7 Plaques.
6. Each iteration of the loop costs 5 actions and 14 Plaques, raises Stoking the Stove by 2 CP, and gains 67 Breaths. So, performing 8 iterations costs 40 actions and 112 Plaques, raises Stoking the Stove to 6 + 6 CP and gains 536 Breaths.
7. Hold your breath underwater twice, then add more plaques to the stove (same as in steps 5.1 and 5.2 - costs 3 actions and 7 Plaques, sets Darkness to 1 + 0 CP and Stoking the Stove to 7, gets 45 Final Breaths)
8. Hold your breath underwater 10 times.
   1. The first time gives 22 Final Breaths (1 Darkness)
   2. The second and third give 21 Breaths (2 Darkness)
   3. The fourth and fifth give 19 Breaths (3 Darkness)
   4. The sixth and seventh give 16 Breaths (4 Darkness)
   5. The eighth to tenth give 12 Breaths (5 Darkness)
9. In total, this costs 10 actions and gains 170 Breaths.
10. Add more plaques to the stove. Since you now have Stoking the Stove 7, this sets Darkness to 7 and Stoking the Stove to 8. It also gives 2 CP of Scandal (Tracklayers' Displeasure is ignored, since its effects are insignificant). This costs 1 action and 7 Plaques.
11. Now you need to hunt the stove down. This is technically card-dependent, but it's a 10x frequency card in a smaller deck so you shouldn't have much trouble. If you succeed all the checks, this costs 4 actions and gets you 5E worth of bats. This returns you to where you started, with 7 Darkness and Stoking the Stove 1.

In total you spend 69 actions and 196 Plaques for 773 Final Breaths (worth 773 scrip) and 5E.

In order to make this a self-contained grind, the necessary Correspondence Plaques must be obtained from somewhere. The best way to get them is by publishing Salacious newspapers with all of the special options for Journals of Infamy (the Scraps of Incendiary Gossip needed for the social action can be obtained by publishing seditious editions: see Publishing a Newspaper (Guide) for more details) and cross-converting them. Doing this gets you ~6.76 Plaques per action, so obtaining the 196 Plaques necessary costs 28.98 actions (97.98 actions total).

However, this grind involves a number of difficult Dangerous checks. Hold your breath underwater has difficulty 190 (needs 317 Dangerous to 100%), and bringing the stove back requires succeeding a difficulty 280 check 3 times (impossible to 100%), though this can be substituted with a difficulty 310 Shadowy check (not considered here). The final EPA is calculated for two different Dangerous values: 317 (minimum to 100% the Hold your breath underwater check - technically obtainable, but out of reach for most characters) and 288 (maximum obtainable without mood/fate/ambition/profession/destiny/spouse/club items). Menaces must also be taken into account - it is assumed here that all menaces are cleared at 6 CP per action using social actions.

With 317 Dangerous, the difficulty 190 check on Hold your breath underwater never fails, and the difficulty 280 check on Challenge it with your fists succeeds 67% of the time. Since you need three successes, the expected number of failures is 1.478. Each failure incurs 3 CP of Wounds and each success incurs 1 CP, so the expected amount of Wounds incurred is 7.432 CP. You also get 2 CP of Scandal when the stove escapes, so in total the expected number of actions spent clearing menaces is 1.572. The final action cost is therefore 101.03, for 7.65 SPA.

With 288 Dangerous, the Hold your breath underwater check has a 90% success chance, and the Challenge it with your fists check has a 61% success chance. You need 37 successes when holding your breath, so the expected number of failures is 4.111 (incurring 8.222 CP of Wounds). You need 3 successes when bringing the stove back, so the expected number of failures is 1.918 (incurring 5.754 CP of Wounds from failures, and 3 CP from successes). The expected number of actions spent on menace reduction is 3.163, and the final action cost is 107.17, for 7.21 SPA.

Other grinds (not yet updated!)

Alternative ways to gain Hinterland Scrip include:

• Selling Infernal Sharpshooter Rifles at the Souvenir-Shop in Jericho Locks: Assuming a fully upgraded Lab and a level 5 Visionary Student, this gives 5.615 SPA (including the journey). The SPA-ratio can be further improved by
  • researching multiple rifles and selling them in bulk
  • having weapon-experts working in your Lab: April ( Bag a Legend!), The Esurient Smith ( Nemesis), or the Reformed Protester (FATE)
  • having a high level of Train Luxuries
  • Note: Buying Sharpshooter Rifles at the Bazaar exchanges Echoes for Scrip at a ratio slightly better than 1:1 (depending on Train Luxuries level.)